Smallpox in Chad

[Phil]

Sorry to bum an old thread,but couldn't resist the temptation.
Smallpox was never eradicated it was just given a new name,Monkey pox.If you or anyone was to see two people, one with Smallpox and the other with Monkey pox you couldn't tell them apart.
Smallpox has had a bad press,it wasn't as bad as said by many.
Sir Thomas Sydenham a Physician of Pall Mall had this to say in 1688-- Provided no mischief is done by physician or nurse then smallpox is a mild and safe disease.' Sir Thomas had a mortality rate of between 1 and 2% when treating smallpox.You will note this was a hundred years prior to mr Jenner and his cowpox myth.
Should you choose to look on most medical sites or Wiki,you'll be told that smallpox is contagious; mortality rate is 30%;and there is no cure.All are incorrect,a number of records from British hospitals show that during smallpox outbreaks people visiting patients didn't catch the disease.A number of Doctors both here and in USA conducted experiments that showed it wasn't contagious.Mortality rates in the eighteenth century were 18.8% and in many instances in the nineteenth century they were 2% or zero.
I know of four cures for smallpox,that were used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that have been forgotten .

phil